In which I am making a list of the gifts #1

Ann Voskamp is one of my favourite reads. If I had to pare my Reader down to just five bloggers, she'd be in it. She writes beautifully but her soul, her perspective is just lovely. We're totally different - she's a gentle, homeschooling, farm-dwelling mama of six living in a small community of Dutch Reformers. And me? Not so much. But oh, my soul, everytime I read her posts, my heart gets a bit deeper, a bit brighter.

As the moments slip down the hour glass of time, I am scratching down the
gifts---just as they happen, as they arrive, as they are unwrapped---that He has
given that make my life grace, the daily graces that He gives in an infinite
number of ways, that stir me.

"...windmills lazying in twilight's last
breeze.... soft wool sweaters with turtle neck collars.... the faint smell of
cattle and straw...."

I am seeing things I have never seen before,
atuned and aware of this constant, endless stream of gifts from His hand. I am
one waking from slumber....from the stupor of indifference and ignorance. I have
sight, fresh and keen---the world is new and full of His gifts.

Too
often I miss Him, oblivious, blind. I don't see all the good things that He is
giving me, gracing me with, brushing my life with. True, He is everywhere,
always. But maybe, before The Gift List, I thought of Him as further off, not so
close. When I started to see all the things that I love bestowed upon me, I
started to see Him as near, present, everywhere, showering me with good things.
Seeing the things I love all around me gives me eyes to see that I am loved,
that He loves me.

It is happening to me as John Milton wrote: "Gratitude
bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those
transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the
world."

Everyday epiphanies everywhere, indeed: gifts....Grace.

"... the smell of the florist’s... the sound of kernels of corn
streaming, tinkling.... leaves floating in puddles..." Just writing them down as
they happen.

Yet my list is different than another's for a reason: God
has made me uniquely me. The Gift List is about gratitude... but it is more. It
is about what defines me and my own personal identity. Reflecting on The
Thousand Gifts List... "...cracking open a new book... pushing children on the
swing.... old men looking at cards in the stationery aisle..." I am thankful for
the things on it, yes, but I am also thankful that He has given the gift of me;
that God made me who I am and I am one who sees and experiences the world in a
way uniquely her own. The Thousand Gifts list is about the gifts Abba gives this
child every day... and, ultimately, about the very gift of self, life as I know
it.

George MacDonald wrote, "No gift unrecognized as coming from God is
at its own best...when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things."

She is in the midst of building a list of a Thousand Gifts. And has invited participation. So I am. I am going to practice gratitude, as I mentioned earlier. And this is a fine way to do it.

So here is my first one.

1. My soul is thankful for these tinies. They are healing and refining me, bringing out the best and worst in me, drawing me closer to Jesus. Oh, they have taught me of love love love love.